The school year is fast approaching; it’s time to prepare yourself. As an adviser, the urge to "fix" a situation or tell students "how" to correct it can be overwhelming. Your responsibility is to facilitate a process, not take over. Inserting personal boundaries helps create the space and freedom for students to have ownership. You may need to ask yourself, “Whose yearbook is this yearbook going to be?” This question will reorient you and remind you of your goals for the class. It will tame the desire to control, refrain from intervening, and take the lead when (not if) difficulties emerge. As you strive to create the best yearbook experience possible for your students consider utilizing different real-world methods to create a positive classroom culture!
Own the Yearbook
Strategically implementing many valuable tricks and tips keeps students engaged and will keep you on target. The United Yearbook blog, Student Motivation, includes the Expectancy-Value-Cost model, which when applied helps students become invested in a project. From the student’s point of view, these 3 questions might drive their willingness to “own” the project of developing a yearbook:
Can I succeed at this?
Do I want to do this? If so, why do I want to do this?
Do I want to or do I have the time, energy, or other resources needed to do this?
When teachers address these questions in a project’s design, students' buy-in and success usually increases. If these 3 questions are not considered in the instructional design, students can become detached. This blog details some strategies that offer success when employed with disengaged students—make use of its tips to ensure a united classroom.
FISH Philosophy
Since creating a yearbook places your staff members in the middle of a “real world” experience, consider this business resource: Fish! Philosophy. FISH! Philosophy is a workplace culture innovator. 25 years ago, a filmmaker, John Christensen, saw a fishmonger business, The World Famous Pike’s Place Fish Market, in the Seattle Market, having loads of fun with each other and with potential customers. The film that he made, FISH!, shared the 4 cornerstones of their personal beliefs and business practices that became known as the FISH! Philosophy.
These 4 simple practices could change each staff member and change the classroom culture.
Be there for one another
Your students value their work as a staff member. They want to feel valued and to believe they made a difference. They want to have fun working with their friends. They enjoy being recognized and recognizing others. They want to be heard and to feel safe in an emotionally supportive environment. So if we collectively and by invitation practice being there for each other, create a sense of playfulness that supports a positive learning environment, make each other’s day through tangible actions and encouragement, and monitor our attitudes while implementing gratitude, we have a chance at making those desires a reality.
IDEO
Another business resource to use with your staff member is IDEO. It is a design thinking originator dedicated to transforming the workplace and empowering employees to clearly lead the way to innovate for the future. IDEO encourages collaboration from these differing perspectives so that transformation or change can happen. IDEO’s process brings a collection of people with lived experience who can work together to solve a challenge through many iterations, all while keeping empathy and humanness at the core of the solution. Your staff members could benefit from just such a process. During the course of any given year, your diverse set of students with their own lived experiences may have several challenges to which they need to find meaningful solutions. IDEO Designkit shares excellent information about Mindsets, Methods, and Case Studies. Whether you implement all of these concepts or aspects of them, these will build confidence in your staff members’ abilities to design their way into radical solutions–changing their perspectives from obstacles to opportunities.
Bottom line? You and your students will create a culture in your classroom. That culture will directly impact the work and product of the classroom and the yearbook. United Yearbook stands ready to accompany you and your students on this journey. We will offer the support you need, respecting the class culture you and your students have fashioned. This is YOUR yearbook. We will help bring it to life!
United Yearbook offers blogs on a wide range of topics. In addition, there are resources such as curriculum, and year-round workshops on this and other areas. Make sure to subscribe to our blog and our newsletter, and visit our website at www.unitedyearbook.net & our resource store to learn more! United Yearbook is available to assist you throughout the school year including summer break.
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Contributor: Lucy McHugh comes to United Yearbook Printing from a 39-year career in public and private school education. She was a former visual art teacher and yearbook adviser. She received a Bachelors of Science in Art from Columbia College in Columbia, SC, a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Nebraska in 2000, and in 2014 earned a Certificate in Catholic School Leadership from Loyola Marymount University. Lucy enjoys her family, making art and gardening.
Editor: Donna Ladner obtained a B.A. in Education and a minor in English from California Baptist University, and a M.S. in ESL from USC, Los Angeles. After she married Daniel, their family moved to Indonesia with a non-profit organization and lived cross-culturally for 15 years before returning to the U.S in 2012. Donna has been working as an editor and proofreader for TSE Worldwide Press and its subsidiary, United Yearbook since 2015.
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